Grahame, Kenneth

(1859-1932)

   Born in Edinburgh, the son of a lawyer, he was orphaned at an early age and was brought up by his grandmother in England, where he attended St. Edward's School, Oxford. He was employed at the Bank of England from 1879, working his way up from clerk to secretary, until he retired due to ill health in 1908. Acting on the advice of Frederick James Furnivall, scholar and founder of the Early English Text Society, he published essays, short stories, and sketches, and contributed articles to such journals as the St. James Gazette and the Yellow Book, but kept his job at the bank. He was shot and seriously wounded at the bank in 1903. He died suddenly at his home at Pangbourne, Berkshire. Some of his publications: Pagan Papers, 1893. The Golden Age, 1895. Dream Days, 1898. The Wind in the Willows, 1908 (dramatized by Mr. A.A. Milne [see entry] in 1929 as Toad of Toad Hall). Three of his Wind in the Willows poems: "Carol: Villagers all, this frosty tide," "Duck's Ditty," "The Song of Mr. Toad."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Poems of Christmas. Myra Cohn Livingston, ed. Atheneum, 1980. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who Has Seen the Wind? An Illustrated Collection of Poetry for Young People. Kathryn Sky-Peck, ed. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1991.